The Ramsey Show - App - Travis Disagrees with His Wife. Who's Right? (Hour 3)

Episode Date: October 17, 2018

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Live from the headquarters of Ramsey Solutions, it's the Dave Ramsey Show, where debt is dumb, cash is king, and the paid-off home mortgage has taken the place of the BMW as the status symbol of choice. I am Dave Ramsey, your host. This is your show, America. Thank you for joining us. Open phones at 888-825-5225. That's 888-825-5225.

Lena starts us off this hour in New York City. Hi, Lena. Welcome to the Dave Ramsey Show. Hi. Thank you. Thank you for taking my call. Sure. What's up in your world?

Well, currently, Dave, right now, I have a lot of student loans and I have some credit card debt that I'm trying to, you know, pay off. But just the amount of income that I have that comes in for a month, it's not really able to, like, you know, even touch or pay off the student loans. But I'm able to pay off the credit cards, but it'll just take a few months for that to happen. Good. So, yeah, so I'm a single mom. I have a six-year-old son, and most of the student loans, they came from when I was in pharmacy school. Mm-hmm. So, I...

Did you complete pharmacy school? I'm sorry? Did you complete pharmacy school? I'm sorry? Did you complete pharmacy school? I didn't complete it because, like, this happened last year. I had gotten dismissed from the program because I had a serious family emergency that kind of jeopardized my seating, and I had to withdraw my application and be kicked out of the program. How long were you in pharmacy school? For four years.

You were in for four years? Four years, yes. How much did you lack graduating? I only had three courses left in completing the on-campus coursework, and then I had to do one year of rotations, and then after one year you graduate and you have to take your boards and become a pharmacist. Yeah. And what level of family emergency would keep you from going across that finish line?

Well, I have a parent that has, like, uncontrolled high blood pressure and diabetes, and they suffered a stroke, very close to a stroke, and that kind of had to take on some serious care in terms of helping them, and that kind of meshed with the time that I had to study for my studies. It was rough. And who's taking care of the parent now? Well, so far, like, you know, the parent is there still with me,

and I'm still helping them out. And, you know, not being in pharmacy anymore,'m doing courses online and i um i'm doing um i'm doing health care management now online and i'm going to be graduating from there next year next year spring semester so it's just that like since i have all this debt um just trying to figure out like what should be my so all the all the student loan is on hold right now because you're back in school. Yeah. And how much student loan debt do you have? Almost $180,000. Good Lord. That's including credit cards as well.

And how much of that's credit cards? In credit cards itself, I didn't add it up, about $7,000. You're almost done with that, you said. What is your income? Income is $1,000 per month. You're living on $12,000 a year? Yes. In New York City?

In New York City, yes. No, you're not. Have you got your parents' income, too, or something? Yeah, since my mom, you know, like, that's the parent I'm with. She's retired, so she's, you know, like, she has her pension, social security, that's paying, like, all of the mortgage and everything else, all the bills. And then I'm just, I'm there with my son. I pay for my son's, um,

my son's tuition for school. And then like, I, I try to take care of like, you know, buying groceries and paying off credit cards and everything. Okay. So like, but my, what my plan was to do was just to try and see with, um, with trying to get back into pharmacy school again. And I even tried to sign up for a real estate licensing, just for that to be like a side hustle. But it's like I even thought of trying to invest, but then hearing from your shows and, yeah.

You don't need to invest. You need to finish one of these degrees and get your income up. Are you working full-time? Part-time. Okay. Why? Because you're caring for your mother? Yeah.

Well, you know, in terms of juggling my son and mom, it's kind of tough. Yeah, I can imagine. But, yeah. I can imagine. Okay. I'm sorry, honey. You got your plate full. Here's the thing.

Here's the thing. You've got to figure, in order to have a career long term in either one of these things, healthcare management or pharmacy, you're going to have to be able to work full time, aren't you? Yes. And how are you going to do that? Well, I haven't really thought of it, like, you know, future-wise, but, like, you know, I'm kind of focusing on just trying to finish the online course. Well, there's no reason to finish. Listen, the reason to finish the degrees is to get your income up, right?

Yeah. We're not collecting degrees. You're not a thermometer. Okay. We only need degrees to be able to make more money. And you can't make more money unless you're able or you put your life in a situation where you can work full time. And that means that you're going to have to arrange for other care for your mother, aren't you? Yeah.

Long term. Not today. aren't you yeah long term not today but as you graduate from either one of these degree fields in order to take advantage of having that degree you're gonna have to be able to work am i wrong about that oh yeah you know so i don't want you going into debt any further i don't want you collecting degrees just to collect degrees just to say you did. I'm heartbroken that you got this close to the finish line on that pharmacy degree and have basically paid for it but weren't able to finish it. I wish you could get back in line on that at some point because that's a hundred to a hundred and fifty thousand dollar a year job

and your life changes dramatically and you've got the money then to actually hire someone to care for your mother. But actually the money that she has coming in from retirement would pay for a caregiver, you know, in her situation. And you may have to go that route. You may not have another way around it. So you just have to look at that and think about long term. Okay, five years from today, where am I going? And step by step, how am I going to get there? The $180,000 doesn't scare me if you're making $150,000 a year. I want you to pay it off really fast. It's really bad, but it doesn't scare me.

It does scare me if you think you're going to make $12,000 a year for the next 10 years and stay in your mother's home and care for her. That's not a plan. You're going to have to do something else. You've boxed yourself in the corner here. Short term, you took care of your mom. That's a wonderful thing you did. Long term, you're going to have to take care of your son,

which involves arranging other care for your mother, I think, unless I'm missing something. I'm not trying to be mean to your mom or something. I'm just trying to think about how you're going to take care for your mother, I think, unless I'm missing something. I'm not trying to be mean to your mom or something. I'm just trying to think about how you're going to take care of your kid and your $180,000 miss. Wow. You call me back if I can help. I'll help you any way I can, kiddo.

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that I felt provided the best protection, but didn't waste dollars on things you could easily do yourself or were just gimmicks. The key is getting protected before you're a victim, and it's too late. Go to Zander.com or call 800-356-4282. We are all at risk, and it doesn't make sense to wait. Numbers don't lie. That's Zander.com or 800-356-4282. Travis is in Jacksonville, Florida.

Hey, Travis, welcome to the Dave Ramsey Show. Hey, Dave, how you doing? Thanks for taking my call. Sure. I was hoping you could settle a debate for my wife and I to move forward with our financial future. We have about $75,000 in debt collectively. We own our home outright. We have a vehicle that is encased in that $75,000.

We both make decent money, and we have an IRA that has about $250 in it. So the question I'm having is... What's decent money? She makes about $120, and I make about $80. Okay. So the question that I have, or the debate that we have, is her mother and father passed away last year, and she was left an inheritance. Of that inheritance, she has to take a certain amount of distribution every year for tax purposes.

My idea for the inheritance money is to take one lump sum, pay off all of our debt, and then repay ourselves back off of that to an IRA so that we don't have to worry about continuously paying the interest game, if you will. Her worry about this is that she's going to be using some of that or a good portion of that for our retirement. My retort to that is she's 40, I'm 38. We still have a good amount of time to be putting into our different funding accounts. So I guess my question is, should we go ahead and take the distribution, pay off all of our debt so that we're no longer paying the interest rates,

or should we go ahead and just pay the debt down as we are and we'll be debt-free within two and a half, three years. Well, we've been using for almost 30 years a decision-making paradigm, a decision-making structure that is based on the idea what is the fastest way to wealth, what is the shortest distance to wealth. And in the process, in other words, what gives us the greatest returns and what gives us the least risk. What has a level of wisdom to it and is not just one-sided. It's not all investing-minded. It's not all debt-minded.

It's not anything. It's just a process, a financial planning process. That process has now been proven, obviously, doing it for 25 years. And many, many people have become millionaires and multimillionaires gradually, not get rich quick, using that process. Then the question becomes, do you guys, will you agree to use that process? And if you're, so the way I would answer the question, obviously, me being me, is I'm going to tell you, use that process, and that will answer your question, what to do with the money. But you've got to first decide, use that process, and that will answer your question what to do with the money.

But you've got to first decide do you want to do that or not. I mean, that's the core disagreement here. What the process is based on, the process is called the baby steps, and what it's based on is a couple of things. Number one, your most powerful wealth-building tool is your income. And freeing up your income and not having debt not only lowers risk, not only increases the peace and the quality of the relationship in the households, but it also increases mathematically, frees up all of your income just to make money with

instead of giving it to banks. And the second part of the thing driving the process is that personal finance is 80% behavior. It's only 20% head knowledge. The stuff we're talking about is not really rocket science here. There's not a lot to the math. It's about fourth or fifth grade math is really all it is. So having said that, we say, baby, step one, save $1,000. You guys have obviously done that.

Two is to be debt-free everything but your house. You've not done that. Three is to have an emergency fund of three to six months of expenses. I didn't hear that you've done that. And then four is start putting 15% of your income into retirement. So how much is in your emergency fund? Currently we have about 25 or so in our savings account. If the inheritance was not on the table, what we would teach you to do is take that down to 24, throw the, or take 24 of

the 25 and throw it at the debt, and then clean up this debt very, very quickly. It is absurd for you to have $75,000 in debt with a $200,000 household income. It was just straight up disorganized. I just got married a couple of months ago and went on a nice wedding and a honeymoon. So that was the majority of the debt. Okay. It's absurd that you make $200,000 a year and you have $75,000 in debt. Mm-hmm.

You know, you guys make enough money to have done this the right way. You chose not to do it the right way. So it's up to you guys. But if you're going to do what we teach, you would use this inheritance immediately to become debt-free so that you take all those payments that you don't have anymore and you use those to build wealth with. You have a paid-for home?

Correct. We inherited it when-for home? Correct. We inherited it when they passed. Okay. All right. And how much is in the inheritance in cash? I'm not quite 100% sure, but I know it's somewhere north of $175,000-ish. $175,000? Correct.

Okay. And why is she taking distributions instead of just taking it? This is what her financial planner told her that she had to do. She had to take distributions to basically cover her tax over each year so she doesn't get hit as hard over tax. It's the most tax-efficient way to take the money out of the account. Yeah, that's a bunch of crap. Okay, because any time you start making your decisions based on taxes instead of based on economics, you make bad decisions.

So I don't know what this money is invested in, but I want to get control of this money and get it invested. So what would I do? I'd cash the whole thing out, pay some taxes, and get a different financial advisor, and I would pay off all the debt, and I would invest the rest of it in something that I can see, control, and know what it is, in good mutual funds or in some paid-for real estate or something like that. I honestly don't think that's what you all are going to do, but that's what I would do,

because I think there's a lot of cooks in this kitchen there's a lot of opinions flying around here and you guys have got to get inside this and as a couple decide what you're going to do and how you're going to handle money and then you start telling financial advisors what to do instead of them telling you what to do and uh it's a different different situation So I think she inherited the financial advisor, too. I don't think you picked him. And that's really bad medicine as well, 90% of the time. You guys need to pick him, or you need to re-pick him and hire him again,

and this time he works for you. But I think he still works for Grandpa, even though Grandpa's dead dead and that's the way this stuff works usually bad bad medicine travis what i would do is cash the whole thing out pay off all my debts and invest the money with what's left that's what i would do and i would take your wonderful two hundred thousand dollar income and become multi-millionaires with it and that's what we've shown people how to do for almost three decades now. Hold on. I'll send you guys a copy of the book, The Total Money Makeover. It'll walk you through not only what to do but why to do it,

and then you can decide intentionally whether you're going to use our system or someone else's. Doesn't matter to me. Oscar is with us in Chicago. Hey, Oscar, welcome to The Dave Ramsey Show. Hey, Mr. Dave. It's a blessing to speak to you today. You too, sir.

Thank you very much for taking my call. Certainly. How can I help? My question is quick. I just began to listen to you on YouTube and on podcasts, and I'm just randomly doing everything that you are saying to do without order, but I know I have to get the financial peace university

class. I will probably take it online so I can do it in order, but I'm just at this point very much doing everything you are saying randomly. So the question today is I cut off all my credit cards. Is it okay that I call the credit card company to actually remove those accounts

totally out of my name? That way I want to remove the temptation of using it. Is that the right way? Absolutely. You need to close the accounts completely, not just cut them up. And that'll keep them from reporting activity on your credit bureau report. And it'll keep someone from accidentally fraudulently using them, or you from using them. Yeah, I definitely would close the accounts as soon as I cut up the cards. No doubt about it. Good to talk to you, Oscar. I'm honored to have you as a new listener.

Hold on, I'll send you a copy of the book, The Total Money Makeover, and that'll get you started and give you the framework from all these different pieces of information that are flying around you right now. This is the Dave Ramsey Show. We'll be right back. Russell's in New Haven, Connecticut. Welcome to the Dave Ramsey Show, Russell. Hey, Dave. How you doing? Better than I deserve. I see on my screen you're debt-free.

Congratulations. Yes, sir. Yes, sir. How much you paid off? $19,000. Cool. How long did this take? Ten months. Yes, sir. How much you paid off? $19,000. Cool. How long did this take? Ten months. Good for you.

And your range of income during that time? Well, when I first heard about you, I was unemployed. And then I went back to work and finished up that year making about $75,000. Good for you. What do you do for a living? I'm an electrician. Very good. Well, what kind of debt was the $75,000. Good for you. What do you do for a living? I'm an electrician. Very good. Well, what kind of debt was the $19,000? A little bit of everything.

It was a second mortgage. It was also a student loan. And the rest was credit card debt. All right. Good for you. So you were out of work. I'm guessing that might have been your wake-up call. Tell me your story.

Well, about a year and a half ago, I met a true Dave hardcore fan. She was a big fan of yours. So she explained to me about the baby steps and it got me going on it. Okay, but it was but then you're unemployed and so you weren't able to start until you got the job? That's what the 10 months is? Right, right,

right. I couldn't, I couldn't, actually, she had me watch some YouTube videos, and I listened to the videos, and she was coaching me through the baby steps. So I had to wait until I got back to work. And once I got back to work, I was ready to go. I had a plan, and I was ready to go. Perfect.

Good for you. Well done. I'm proud of you. So we know who your biggest cheerleader is. We got a picture right here, right?. Good for you. Well done. I'm proud of you. So we know who your biggest cheerleader is. We got a picture right here, right? That's for sure. What do you tell people the key to getting out of debt is? The key I have to say is just budget. The budget is so simple, but it's powerful. You know, if you stick to it, you get a lot done with a little bit. Absolutely.

That's the big budget. Well done, sir. Very well done. We're proud of you. Congrats. We've got a copy of Chris Hogan's book for you, Retire Inspired. That is the next chapter in your story for you to become a millionaire and outrageously generous along the way, okay?

Okay. All right, man. Russell in New Haven, Connecticut, $19,000 paid off in 10 months, all the way from zero to making $75,000. Count it down. Let's hear a debt-free scream. Three, two, one. I'm debt-free! Well done, one. I'm debt free! Well done, sir.

Yes, sir. That's how you do it. Love it, love it, love it. Good stuff. Well, a bunch of you heard us talking about the Smart Conference in Kansas City. And a bunch of you heard us talking about the one coming up in Dallas. And you're going, I'd love to see that, but I just can't get there. Well, for the first time ever,

you can actually experience the Ramsey Solutions Smart Conference from the comfort of your home. We're offering a streaming and a DVD recording of this incredible conference right now, just released in the online store at DaveRamsey.com. It's only $39.99. So you get all the DVDs and the code to stream it. That's pretty cool.

If you're struggling with money, relationships, or career, and you don't know what to do, Ramsey Smart Conference will help you take control of your life. You'll hear these world-class talks that we always talk about from Henry Cloud, Les Parrott, Meg Meeker, Chris Hogan, Rachel Cruz, Christy Wright, Anthony O'Neill, and of course, me. It's time to start living smarter. Includes three DVDs and online video access to the same content. In other words, if you're away from a DVD player, you can watch it on your phone or something,

boom, you'll have a code to watch it online. Four and a half hours of talks from these leading experts. One bonus CD with my personal story and two participant workbooks go with it. It's quite a package for $39.99. You can check it out at DaveRamsey.com and learn what's going on there. Our question of the day comes from Blinds.com, the number one online retailer of custom window covering. You get free samples, free shipping, and with the new promos they run every month, you'll save even more. Use the promo code Ramsey to get the best possible deal.

The question comes from Lori in Iowa. I was interested in opening a 529 plan for my daughter. She has autism. So I may open an able account instead. I would, depending on the severity of her autism. My biggest concern is that I don't know what happens to the money in a 529 plan. If she doesn't go to college, can you tell me what happens to money not used for education uh it will be if you don't transfer it to a sibling um it'll be heavily taxed and

penalized it'll be taxed and heavily penalized so um you know the 529 is not a good plan uh for a child that you're not sure what's going to happen as far as their education is going to be. And where you've got a special need situation like this, I would use the ABLE account and or I would just use mutual fund. Just put it in mutual fund and let it grow. And then you can just take care of the child with that money. You're just earmarking it for them for their future. They may do a trade school. They may be able to do a full four-year academic run. They may do a lot of things. I don't know the severity of this. I don't know exactly what you're facing, but you simply can just save money. It's that simple. Invest money in your name, and you're controlling it, and then you can decide to

help your child however you want to. The only advantage advantage of the able or the 529 is just the tax advantage still just an investment in a good mutual fund the only question is as it grows is it going to be taxed that's the only thing so it's an advantage if you have a real high probability of them doing higher education but again where you've got a a special needs situation most of the time i'm going to say just save it in a regular account save it in a mutual fund if you want to use the able that's fine that's what it's designed for you can do all kinds of stuff with that it's a good plan but i probably would just keep it where i can get my hands on it and uh not a big deal either way the the thing the reason we push you to 529s

is it does two things uh in a traditional situation it teaches you to brainwash your kid to go to college which is not a bad thing at all and the other thing is it allows that money to grow tax-free and so it's a that's a wonderful a wonderful benefit. But is that the only possible way you can care for your child? No, no. It's just in a more traditional situation, it's the best way, the least taxes on the thing, which is generally what we want to do. So we're letting it grow. But in this situation, the tax benefit is not worth the pinching you in the corner

and actually hitting you harder later, making you wish you just paid the taxes. And that's the way it'll work out. Open phones at 888-825-5225. Zach is on Twitter. Dave, I'm thinking about studying abroad next summer, but the cost is at least $5,000. I really don't want to go into debt, but I'll be out of college soon, and this is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.

What should I do? Zach, there's a 100% chance that Dave Ramsey is never going to tell you to borrow money. It's fairly predictable. 30 years I've been doing this, almost. I mean, it's 27 years I've been here on the air. I've never told people to borrow money. So if you want to go study abroad, I suggest you get your butt a job.

$5,000 is doable. Just work your little tail off and then go and enjoy your study abroad experience and pay cash for it. And that way it won't follow you home. There's a plan. Be amazed what you can do if you really, really want to. Like, for instance, if I told you that you were going to die if you didn't save $5,000. Oh, you'd go work and find $5,000 to not die. It's amazing what you can do when you really want to.

But I'm going to be a little lazy here, and I'm just going to borrow my way into a mess, and I'm going to say, well, you've got to live while you can live. Oh, no. No, Zach. This sounds like a child. You don't want to be a child. You want to be a grown man. It's a good thing. This is The Dave Ramsey Show. Our scripture of the day, Psalm 112, 6 and 7.

Surely the righteous will never be shaken. They will be remembered forever. They will have no fear of bad news. Their hearts are steadfast, trusting in the Lord. Ray Bradbury says, trusting in the Lord. Ray Bradbury says, go to the edge of the cliff and jump off. Build your wings on the way down. Well, maybe.

That sounds painful to me. Oh, James is in College Station. Hey, James, welcome to the Dave Ramsey Show. How are you doing, Dave? Better than I deserve. How are things in Aggieland? Pretty interesting, or at least unique for me, I'd like to say. I'm a young professional who's moved over here, this neck of the woods, and I'm just receiving a large inheritance that I received the first part of it, and I'll probably receive the next

part in, I don't know, another year or two. And I was just kind of looking for advice, because I feel like the situation's different than a lot of other people. Yeah. Yeah. Well, not many people have that rich uncle, so... No kidding. So how much are you receiving now?

How much are you receiving later? So I've already received about $100,000 to $125,000. And then I'm looking at another $200,000 to $250,000 within the next year or two. What a wonderful blessing. Who is leaving that to you? Actually, my great-grandfather. Wow. Started off as a penny pincher and is building generational wealth.

So very lucky. That's amazing. You're a great grandfather. Wow. So are you single? I am. Well, I've got a girlfriend, but we'll see how that pans out, right? Okay.

And what do you make a year? About 60 right now. Good for you. And how much debt do you have? I have none. Look at you. And how much debt do you have? I have none. Look at you. You're your great-grandfather's kid. That's excellent.

He's proud of that, I'm sure. All right. How old are you? I'm 23. Okay, good, good. Okay. Typically, what will occur in the next five years, statistically speaking, it's not a requirement, it's certainly not a law,

it's just an observation of the way life unfolds, you'll get married and buy a house, typically. Okay? You may not. You don't have to. Like I said, it's not required. I'm not saying that. But the point of that being, those are two major events, and both of them will require money. And so we need to keep that in mind while we're doing this. We would always tell you to have an emergency fund of three to six months of expenses.

So I want you to have around $15,000 or so set aside for that. If you want to buy a home and pay cash for it at this stage an inexpensive home that's not a bad thing uh i i would expect that when you get married you probably would move again and that's not unusual it's not bad it's just you kind of expect that so um because generally after you get married you find out you bought the wrong home. Yeah, I'm anxious to buy a home. My older brother is buying a home at this point, but I just don't think it's right for me with, you know, with how accessible moving is for me in my field. I'm a nurse.

I'm capable of moving anywhere. Okay. Then you don't have to then. That's cool yeah there's not my point is there's no rush and i i'm personally with you i think it'd be cool if you wait three years to buy your place and kind of quote settle in or whatever number of years and so once you've got your emergency fund in place and you're debt free then there's really nothing left to do with this money except three things which is what you should always do

with money you should enjoy some of it a small portion of it not much you make enough with no debt to enjoy your salary you should give some of any money that you have and you should invest some of it and so the majority of this money, if I'm in your shoes, is going to be invested. And the portion that you know you're going to leave alone, you're pretty comfortable that you're going to leave alone at least five years. I'm just going to buy some good mutual funds with it. I invest in four types of mutual funds in my retirement and in my long-term investing, which is five years or longer, in growth, growth and income, aggressive growth, and international. I probably would set 100 to 150 of this in something a little more conservative than

that that is growing some, but I'm probably going to pull that money out in the next five years and buy a house with it. And, you know, something along those lines. Again, it's not a requirement and i would make sure i was settled in you like the um the flexibility that you've got now and i think that's a bad i mean i think that's a good thing uh i think you'd i'd hold on to that flexibility for a while i don't want to look up and find you 35 years old and still having not bought a home uh in especially in your situation because you're in such a

great situation. So I would give some. I would enjoy some, and I would invest the majority of it, some of it towards a home in the future, maybe just a simple index fund, an S&P 500, no load. There's no commission. Just let it grow. It's going to follow the market, whatever the market does, and then the rest of it I would invest longer term than that just to build wealth with.

If you start at your age, say, with around $200,000 of this, and you invest it, and it sits there for 40 years and grows at stock market rates of return, which has been at 11.8% since it started, you're going to be so wealthy, it's going to be unbelievable. And it's a wonderful way to honor your great-grandfather's legacy. So sit down with a SmartVestor Pro is what I would tell you to do. Click SmartVestor at nayramsey.com. It'll drop down a list of the SmartVestor Pros in your area. When you fill in your stuff, you pick out one you like or two or three and interview them. i don't care and go from there and sit down with someone and start to learn about mutual funds how they work what they are how to invest and i think it's good to have two

buckets of investing here one with a five-year mindset for buying a home and one with a 40-year mindset for just becoming unbelievably, wonderfully wealthy. All right. Aston is with us in Charlotte, North Carolina. Hi, Aston. How are you? I'm doing great. How are you?

Better than I deserve. How can I help? Well, I just recently, about three months ago, started the EveryDollar app. Love it. I'm meeting with a smart pro investor this week for my personal finances. So it's all great. But my question isn't on the individual side of things. It is on the church or nonprofit side of things.

I was curious if, in your opinion or perspective, are there ways for churches and nonprofits to invest for them financially well some people call that being endowed uh where a university is typically a situation where you would see that happen um and it's where there's a large enough sum of money that the investment return off of that account so you had a 10 million dollar endowment that had built up and that money is invested in the investing the returns off that 10 million dollars will operate the thing in perpetuation and so the net the nest egg causes the non-profit to live in perpetuation off of that. You most often see that in a formal, large nonprofit, or where you really see it a lot is in a university, where they're endowing even a professorship.

There's enough money in this one account that the income is providing, is paying the salary of a professor in whatever field, okay? And someone just felt like they wanted to make sure that university was able to pay that professor in perpetuation going forward, and that kind of a thing. In the local church, I almost never see that, especially the evangelical world, the evangelical church. Now, Catholicism has a lot of assets. The Vatican is very wealthy, and so that's a different mindset on it. But in evangelicalism, the vast majority of the time, those of us sitting on that church board or that elder board, which I've done many times,

would say the investment is not to be made in earthly investments, but instead into people and causing people to meet Christ and grow in Christ. And that's the investment that we want to make. And so the only actual wealth that is retained is the paid-for properties that the thing operates in or some retained earnings that are sitting there, some savings just to make sure that there's an operational buffer. But in terms of building an actual endowment in that setting, I almost never see it. Hope that helps answer your question. That puts this hour of The Dave Ramsey Show in the books. We'll be back with you before you know it. Hope that helps answer your question. That puts this hour of the Dave Ramsey Show in the books. We'll be back with you before you know it. In the meantime,

remember, there's ultimately only one way to financial peace, and that's to walk daily with the Prince of Peace, Christ Jesus. Hey, it's Kelly, Dave's phone screener. We finished 2017 with a bang as the fourth most downloaded podcast of the year. Thanks to all of you for listening and helping us spread the year. Thanks to all of you for listening and helping us spread the word.